Internship Job Title: Division of Natural Resources
Semester: Summer 2025
Preferred Major(s): Biology, Ecology, Natural Resources, Wildlife Ecology, Conservation Biology
Internship Type: Micro-Intern
Work Location: On-site
Job Description:
Interns will help staff in the Division of Natural Resources at Cleveland Metroparks with several ongoing, exciting conservation and natural resource management-related projects. Most notably, we have been exploring the potential of a novel wildlife monitoring approach involving the placement of two motion-triggered cameras at the ends of a long fence. When animals trigger either of the two cameras, photos are taken, allowing us to inventory rare and elusive wildlife species in protected areas. We will have a total of 7 of these camera-trapping fences and will need to process and tag the images from this project.
Duties:
The intern would have the opportunity to assist with the following:
Checking these cameras and swapping out cards
Looking through images from these cameras for rare and elusive wildlife species
Other potential field opportunities with research and management staff
We are particularly interested in documenting smooth green snakes (a state-listed snake more commonly found in open areas), and any images of weasels taken on our cameras, and welcome ideas on how to better document these elusive organisms.
Skills and Competencies:
We welcome interns from a variety of backgrounds and experience levels, and plan on helping the intern with onboarding for any necessary skillsets. A basic familiarity with the operation of computers and a willingness to conduct brief field excursions in a variety of conditions and sit for several hours afterwards to look through camera images would be extremely helpful for this internship.
Deliverables:
By the end of the internship, the intern will have, at minimum, assisted with the tagging and annotation of wildlife in camera trapping images. If time allows, the intern will have the opportunity to conduct some brief data analysis on these tagged images to describe general trends in documented wildlife species, which may culminate in a brief report or presentation.